Royal Society for the Blind SA fears for clients under PM's National Disability Insurance Scheme

THE Royal Society for the Blind SA has written to the United Nations to complain that Julia Gillard's flagship disability plan will discriminate against three in every four blind people.

The RSB has complained that under a proposed Bill, people who suffer vision problems beyond the age of 65 will be considered as aged-care patients, disqualifying them from disability funding and putting them in the overstretched aged-care system.

RSB executive director Andrew Daly said this covered 75 per cent of the 1200 people that RSB SA assisted with vision impairment problems.

He visited Canberra last week to lobby for the Federal Government to address the problem and the organisation had lodged an age discrimination complaint with the UN.

"It is black and white, the government is just not prepared to move on it," Mr Daly said.

"What they are saying is if you are 64 when you first need help with vision impairment, then you will be looked after but somehow you have to access help through a generic aged-care sector.

"The care we provide to people is the same regardless of the age, but the aged-care system is geared towards people who are frail because of their age."

Under the current system, vision-impaired people at any age are referred directly to the RSB by doctors for services like guide dogs, mobility assistance, counsellors and shopping assistance.

Mr Daly said people who presented with a vision problem over the age of 65, under the planned National Disability Insurance Scheme, would be subjected to a generic assessment in the aged-care system and services which are already struggling to cope with demand.

Minister for Disability Reform, Jenny Macklin, has said she is still considering the age cut-off issues.

Mr Daly said he believed the Federal Government had introduced the cut-off to make budget cuts to the NDIS which Ms Gillard believes will be a key plank of her re-election campaign.

"On the one hand, the government is saying that the aged care sector is going to get bigger than Ben Hur and it will be difficult to fund and then they are consigning most of our people to it," he said.